OUR TEAM

Our kin, our partners, our supporters that help make Seeding Sovereignty the vibrant community it is.

Janet MacGillivray J.D., LL.M. 

Founder, Executive Director

Janet (she/her) is a social change community activist who founded Seeding Sovereignty birthed at Standing Rock to amplify the role of Indigenous knowledge and to de-expert and diversify the environmental movement. Janet is a former whistle blower.

At Seeding Sovereignty, Janet advocates for systematically oppressed communities, women and species to stop chronic environmental, cultural, racial and economic injustices and to support regenerative community led solutions. She directs climate justice work and associated Divest/Defund, Meet the Frontlines, Land Sovereignty and No Pipelines to Plastic campaigns as well as our plaintiff status in the landmark rewilding litigation against the federal government. Together these work to protect our warming planet home, safeguard our precious water, stop violence to women and girls, end industrial animal agriculture, redistribute resources, and safeguard our remaining and sacred lands for future generations. Janet also co-organizes Seeding Sovereignty’s nationwide rapid response COVID Indigenous Impact Community Care Initiative - recently approached by FEMA to support 59,000 Indigenous children - that works with and for Indigenous communities and unsheltered relatives.

Janet recently beat cancer again and continues to dedicate her life work to her daughter, all children, her many specied-teachers and to future generations so they may have thriving lives on a healed planet.

Board Members

  • Bobbi Jean Three Legs
    Standing Rock Sioux Tribal member, youth prayer runner, youth leader of the Standing Rock movement.

  • Fiona Apple
    Artist, Musician, Criminal Justice activist, who set precedent in kinship with our organization to include a land acknowledgment on her critically acclaimed album “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”

  • Dolores Huerta
    Labor leader, community organizer, icon, mentor, President and Founder of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, Co-Founder of United Farmworkers Association

  • Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Whetstone
    Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, Rising Hearts Founder + Community Organizer, Filmmaker, Professional Runner + Athlete Advocate, DEI/JEDI Consultant, Project Manager at UCLA School of Medicine

  • Dr. Karen Binder-Brynes
    Trauma Psychologist and renowned specialist in PTSD and disaster responder therapy.

  • Katheryn Erbe
    Actress, role model, substance abuse mentor to youths who strive to be substance-free.

  • Kyp Malone
    Musician, social justice activist, organizer of Stand with Standing Rock Benefit Concerts.

  • Linda Black Elk
    Catawba/Mongolian, ethnobotanist, restoration ecologist, Professor of Food Sovereignty.

  • Melina Laboucan-Massimo
    Lubicon Cree First Nation, Co-Founder Indigenous Climate Action where she is the Healing Justice Director, Founder of Laboucan Solar.

  • Riley Keough
    Actor, director, activist for Indigenous rights, advocate for mental wellness.

  • Dr. Rupa Marya
    Doctor, Author of “Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice,” Founder of Deep Medicine Circle, musician

  • Sharon Lavigne
    Founder, Executive Director of RISE St. James.

  • In Memoriam:
    LaDonna Bravebull-Allard
    Mother of Standing Rock, historian, leader, hero.

Our Team

  • Madeleine MacGillivray

    Climate Justice Program Lead

    Madeleine (she/her) is a lifelong Climate justice advocate, science communicator, microplastics specialist, and community organizer. At 15 years old, she was one of five plaintiffs in the first case to take her government to court for Climate inaction as part of the youth V gov effort. She is the Climate justice lead at seating sovereignty, where she works to break down the silos of plastic pollution, climate justice, climate crisis, and public health through storytelling, resource sharing, and community building.

  • Yam Vallis

    Mutual Aid Program Manager

    Yam (they/them) is a Queer/Trans fifth-generation community herbalist, clinical herbalist, & scholar of botany and traditional pathways of mutual aid. In their work, Yam is committed to envisioning a future centered on food and medicine sovereignty, abolition, and ancestral healing.

  • Lily Joy Winder

    Indigenous Decolonization Communications Organizer

    Lily Joy (she/her) is a Diné/Southern Ute activist and student at Stanford University that specializes in issues of Indigenous sovereignty, environmental justice, and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples epidemic. She has built online platforms for her advocacy, with over 300,000 thousand followers across social media platforms dedicated to uplifting her communities.

  • Kiara Williams

    Community Liberation and Global Solidarity Coordinator

    Kiara Williams (she/her) is an activist, creative, and student at Wayne State University double-majoring in Environmental Science and Geology. Her work spans from converting digital organizing into off-line action through social media campaigns, fundraising for other grassroots organizations, bridging the gap between communities of color to strengthen solidarity, and coordinating mutual aid and community centered events.

  • Anita Nuñez

    Development Specialist

    Anita (she/her) is a Queer/Trans Cuban-American community educator and activist dedicated to sharing the traditional wisdom of agro-ecology and herbal remedies. Her work takes place at the intersection of caring for life and land, and she currently tends to an abundant medicine garden full of traditional Caribbean healing plants.

  • Michael Fontana

    Climate Policy Researcher

    Michael (he/him) is a climate policy researcher, communications designer, and activist focused on building accessible tools and models for legislative advocacy in New York City and beyond. He is currently developing a Climate Policy Dashboard to make it easier to learn about and take action on NYC climate bills and “action party” models for applying this approach to other locations.

  • Kyla Paolucci

    Design Operations Manager

    Kyla (she/her) is a designer, educator, and researcher exploring the intersections of ethnography, vernacular design, and authorship. Drawing from craft traditions and postcolonial design discourse, she examines how design functions as both a site of identity formation and a tool for cultural negotiation.